The Haunted Lab

I had a busy day today. I finally finished writing a paper I had to do for MMBio and turned it in today. I know this is going to post this as Friday; however, I'm still considering this as Thursday. Last night, I stayed up all night working on my paper and looking at all kinds of Halloween masks, costumes, and animatronics. Of course, we're done with Halloween this year. However, I though it was really interesting to watch all kinds of videos and surf the professional sites. At the end of September, I really searched the web for videos that talked about haunted houses. I really wanted to go this year to a good one, but I didn't find anyone who wanted to go with me. So, I went to a free one that was right on campus. It was hosted my an engineering club and was in the Clide building. That's pretty much the first building that I walk by everyday to get to my classes. So, it wasn't that much of a walk.

I went inside the Clide building trying to figure out where the haunted lab was. So, I walked past a door that was propped open. I saw a sign for the haunted lab that was pointing outside. However, I thought that door was the entrance because I thought it looked creepy. The only light that was on in the room was an open laptop that was on a lab table. When I went in, I saw a big section of a dark room. Beyond that section, I heard Halloween music and lights. So, I plugged my ears because I was creeped. I always do that when I'm scared or when I'm walking past a fence that has a dog barking at me. I didn't want any thing to jump, scream at me, and make me jump. When I arrived in the next room, I heard someone say "Get ready, they are coming." I yelled back that it's only one person. The guy yelled that because I came when it just started. In that room, I saw lots of blue tarp draped over. I saw another laptop providing more light on the floor. I tried to find a way through any of the tarp. However, I just found dead ends. So, retraced my steps, though the door, and went outside. Then, I found a line waiting for the haunted lab.

They were playing Halloween music and had fake gravestones to get everyone in the mood while we waited. It was suppose to look like a cemetery because the gravestones was surrounded by a fence. I waited ten to fifteen minutes. In my group, there was a very young couple and a dad and his two young boys. The boys were really nervous about being the leaders. I knew it wasn't going to be scary because it was a free haunted house put on by a club. I just wanted to get in the spirit in Halloween and be entertained. I had low expectations. When the gal who collected donations had said that they were still looking for five volunteers, they lowered even further.

Finally, it was our turn. For some reason the club members had the guests exit the main entrance same way that they entered. It makes more sense to have them exit another part of the building, to add to the atmosphere for the guests who are waiting. When we came in, we were greeted by our guide. As we were waiting, I saw a freaky clown staring at me through slit between two tarps. I pointed the clown out the to the couple. Then, the clown stuck his head out and said something. Then, I realized he was wearing a mask. He looked cooler in his room because of the black light.

Our greeter said to have low expectations and expect the unexpected. So, I lead the way as we went downstairs. I waited at the bottom because that's what our guide told us to do. I really liked the decorations and lighting in the stairwell. I though we were going to go through a door at the bottom. However, our guide said that was a dead end. I thought that was clever and cheap. We came back up and put some 3-D glasses on. The boys and his dad were leading the way now. This is where the clown was. The 3-D part was really short. Then, we came to a evil scientist where he wanted to raise Frankenstein. The scientist talked with a fake accent. So, he had the guy from the couple put a vice on Frankenstein's head. I was really expecting to sit up, yell at us, and make me jump. However, he got up and attacked the scientist. That just made me laugh.

The next room was a house with a TV and a mirror. The TV was flickering and noticed that it was on a DVD menu screen. Our guide told us a story about a girl. Then, we saw her peering though the window. Afterwards, I think I lead the way. We came in a room where there was a strobe light. A person came out of nowhere and startled me. I thought the strobe light effect was cool. Then, I ran into a net because I couldn't see it. By this time, I was alone. Then, I past this guy sitting in a chair very still. He didn't do anything when he saw me. I went into the next room. It took awhile for them to have a guy pretend that he cut another guy's head off with a guillotine. I waited between the rooms because I wanted to be with the group. When I finally saw them, I noticed that they were taking forever because the two boys were leading the way. So, I just went ahead. There was a guy lying there and tried to scare me by moving. Then, that was the end of it. When I walked out, a girl asked me if it was scary. I said no and walked home.

Probably, I'm forgetting some details of the haunted labs, but that's alright. So, this haunted lab exceeded my expectations. It was a much better haunted house than my very first one I went to with Andrey two years ago. I thought that haunted house was a rip off because I think we payed ten dollars for each of us. However, Andrey payed for the both of us because we were dating at the time. I think the haunted house was for a charity for some kind. I wanted to go to that one because it was right next to the old institute building in Spokane.

So, I wanted to watched some good videos on the web that has really good haunted house scares. There's only a few videos that I've found that are from haunted houses. Most of the hidden cameras is when kids trick or treat, which means that most are not entertaining. From haunted house videos, I've noticed that groups huddle pretty close together. I think that's kind of funny because everything is fake in a haunted house. Why be scared?? I picked the best haunted house videos on the net. This guy is so good!! It's pretty funny.

Opposite Life

Hi. Sorry that I haven't been writing as much. I've been so busy with school. I need to get more busy because I didn't do too well on my O-chem test. That means I can't doddle for four and a half to five hours on the internet. I mostly checked my email and watched videos about video games. I really need to complete a paper that was due on Tuesday, which was today. I didn't get it done because I waited too long. I'm thankful that Dr. Lin was willing to give me two extra days. I was completely surprised because last time I turned in something late, my professor docked me points. I miss SCC. Everything was easier. My life was simpler because I was so isolated. I just went to school, did homework, watch TV on the computer, went to church, and did karate. However, I really did wish that I had some close friends like I did in high school. Now, I have a completely opposite life. I don't like doing my homework, school is so much harder, and I have a social life. I love my roommates because they've become good friends. Sarah has become my best friend in a sense because she's lived with me the longest. However, we don't have anything in common except we like to go to the movies. I think that's the story of my life because I don't have that much in common with anyone except Andrey.

My Music Library

So, I meant to be productive today. I wanted to do laundry, do some grocery shopping, and dump the extra door and fender to the recycling place today. I need to by some black shorts by Friday too. For Halloween, Sarah, Katrina, Mary Lou, and I are going to be The Incredibles. I need to buy the shorts the the costume. We're going to have a member from the ward take pictures of us. Then on Friday night, we are going to the ward Halloween Dance.

Like I said, I wanted to get things done today, so I can do homework the rest of the week. Like always, I got distracted. This time, I was distracted by looking for and downloading songs from mininova.com and ffshrine.org. Yesterday, I reached the end of my library for the second time. That told me that I needed go get some new songs because I wasn't going to find anything new in my library. The first time I went through my library, I was shuffling through every song. I did this because I wanted to be kinder the songs that I was listening to. That means I would get bored less often. However, I didn't care about that anymore the second time through and listened the album by artist option.

I deleted some songs, but not as many as the first time. At first, I wanted to be kinder because I'm more tolerable to music that annoys or bores me on some days. However, I just realized that it's easier just to go through the album and delete any songs that bug me. I was down to 3,300 songs. I've realized that I have enough songs to keep me entertained for the most part. Now, I want songs that entertain me. I especially want to find those songs that I repeat over and over again. I love those types of songs. However, after repeating a song for so much, I need a long break before I hear most of them again because they start to bore or annoy me.

Pretty much all music that people listens to really annoy me. Andrey, my former boyfriend, was the only person I knew that had tastes similar to mine. Actually, he introduced me to trance and techno, mainly ATB and Aura. Now, I have tons of that type of music because of him. I just don't like listening to pretty much all the music one hears on the radio. It annoys the crap out of me.

O-chem Test 2

Stupid internet. I wanted to do more studying for my test tomorrow. I really hoping and praying that I'll do well on it tomorrow. I'm planning on studying a lot more tomorrow before it. I just hope that I'll get through enough where I'll feel comfortable about it. I haven't even gone through all the problems in the back of the chapter for any of three chapters. However, I've gone though most of the problems in the chapters though. I was really hoping that I could gotten though a chapter. I just want an average or above average grade. I don't think I'll bomb it. Yesterday, I studied the wrong chapter. So, I didn't do the take home quiz because I didn't know how to do it. I'm banking that I'll do well on the test. It didn't help that I went to FHE and got distracted on the internet when I got back home. Well, I think that I'll keep up with my reading for now on for O-chem because I wanted to go through all the problems in the chapters. Last time, I didn't go through a chapter and that hurt me on the test because I forgot some things. However, I did go through all the other chapter's problems. Wish me luck. I'll need it. I hate getting nervous about tests because I should be able to handle them since I'm going part time. It's just really hard to make myself to do homework.

Vanessa

Hey, Guess What???? I wanted to search more about Paul Tom today. I didn't come up with that much. However, I did find Vanessa's blog. She wrote about the first and only BJJ tournament that I've competed in so far. I only fought against her and Taz. I thought that I wrote about the tournament in my blog. However, I couldn't find anything. Probably, because nothing really happened.

Vanessa is around 30 years old and weighs around 200 pounds. I put up a good fight. She took me down pretty quickly. For some reason, she only was working on my arms when on mount. I don't remember her trying to choke me from mount which is weird. Roberto said that I was doing all the right things by not exposing my arms. I think that he expected her to win faster because she had a year of experience. It's pretty cool that she even has a two photos so us sparring. I like the photo where she's armbarring me. It looks like it's locked, however, it's not. The ref should have let me tap instead of stopping it because I escaped a few seconds later. She would have won anyways because she was the one who was on top and had the advantage.

I waited a long while until I fought Taz. He beat me pretty quickly. I got a bloody nose right after sparring with him. When the tournament was done, I wanted to spar with Vanessa again. However, it was stopped short because my nose started bleeding again. I remember trying to sit up when sparring, but laid back down because of my nose. She felt really bad afterwards. I told her that I've always gotten bloody noses and it wasn't her fault. She told me that members were from my dojo where yelling so loud that when we sparred that she couldn't hear her's helping her. I remember Nick or Zack telling me to use the wall when sparring with her. I thought it was weird because we never use the walls. However, that wall was padded.

The Party

I've decided not to go to the tournament because forty dollars is too steep just to compete and lose. I went to this special party that the BYU BJJ club today. It wasn't as fun as Wednesday night. I think it's because I got to work with Brian that night. I love working with him because he likes to joke around a lot. He's lots of fun to work with and has tons of knowledge because he's a purple belt. However, he doesn't wear it. He's really good. I need to ask him if I'm still using too much muscle because Eric said I was tonight. Colin said that I need to be nicer when sparring too. Like trying not to shove my forearm in Logan throat so he can let go of me from his guard. That didn't work anyways. I don't know. I learned that I can use any pain compliance technique that I want. That's how I learned to be more aggressive and not afraid that I'm going to cause someone pain. I remember that I gave older Nick a huge scratch on his chest on accident. It was all good though.

Logan is a beginner at the club, so he won the first match with ankle lock. Then, we went had a second match that lasted forever. We are evenly matched for the most part. However, he had the advantage because he was on top of me for most of the match. He loves closed guard which I'm horrible at getting out of. So, I tried stacking, choking, and wearing him out so he can let go of me. However, that didn't work. It was weird going that slow so long. If we any of us slowed down and stalled in Roberto's dojo, we count down until someone got a better position. If nobody did, he stop us and say it was a tie. Colin says that the club likes to have slow matches like that. I think it's just weird.

I don't know who's right about BJJ any more because Roberto thought that not many of the guys knew much basics. They know finishing moves, but they know how to properly defend. They don't know all the things in the middle. All I want is a black belt in BJJ who can tell me what's good and not good. It's like Roberto thinks that a gym like school called Throwdown sucks. He says the guys that train there has awful technique. However, Coach Pease says that the instruction there is top notch. He says it's not for everyone because the class sizes are big. I don't know who's right anymore. I don't have much knowledge of BJJ like I do with Goju-Ryu. All I know is a principle from what I learned when throwing the discus. It all technique and speed while throwing it. One cannot use muscle because that tenses the body. A tense muscle doesn't move as fast as a muscle that not tense. Plus, it's better to be more flexible so the muscle has more elasticity like a rubber band.

Tournament????

Right now, I'm totally excited. Why?? Because I just found out that a big grappling tournament is coming up. I knew about this tournament, but didn't know how big it's going to be. I've only been in one tournament so far. It cost me twenty dollars. It was alright. I fought against a woman who had a year of experience. I did alright because I only had a few months of experience. She mounted me pretty quickly. It took her forever to armbar me. Actually, it wasn't even a good armbar because I got out of it. However, the person that was reffing stopped us and said that she won.

The last tournament that was held at Throwdown I skipped because Roberto wasn't taking anybody to it. Afterwards, I found out that I could have taken first in the Woman's division because I have more experience than all the girls which placed. I know that because all the girls were from the BYU club. I could have gotten a cool sword!! After my first tournament, I wanted to get much better because I didn't want to waste my money. So, I trusted Roberto and didn't go.

I watched a promotional video for the up coming tournament. When watching it for the second time, I realized that Roberto was in it. Then, I noticed that Xzavior's mom was right next to him. Then, I realized that the two guys that are pictured before the movie starts are the guys that I met during my training in Roberto's dojo. I think that they trained in the Utah Valley University's (UVU) BJJ club.

I started thinking about the possibility of going to another tournament and competing. Then, I thought about how Roberto and the guys helped and cheered me on when I competed. Whenever anyone competes, Roberto becomes the corner and tells that person what to do. He said that eventually we'll learn a code where our opponents wouldn't know what he's telling us. When anyone starts telling what to do when I'm sparring, I get much better because I have an objective in my head and have the will power to pull through.

If I compete, this tournament will cost me forty dollars. That's a little spendy for a tournament. That's with it's discounted too. The normal cost would be sixty dollars. So, I don't know. If I do this, I need to start training right away to get ready for it. My side and chest feels pretty much healed. However, I haven't tested that by sparring yet. I think I was overtraining. I know that Roberto thinks doesn't one can overtrain by doing the type of exercise that we did. However, I knew that wasn't true.

We tried to push ourselves to the max each day. So, I don't think that we allowed ourselves to recover. I know that the more that one trains, one can increase the intensity, frequency, and longevity of the training. However, I think that we trained a too hard a little to much. I'm glad that I got out when I did to let myself to heal. I know that if I kept on going, I would have healed slower because I would have went to every practice. Plus, I would have probably started doing things before I was ready for them.

The Island

HMMM. Whenever I write in this blog, I start thinking about BJJ and how much I miss it. I know, I know. You can say that I can going to a new dojo any time now. I wanted to go to BJJ this morning; however, I went to bed too late which was around two thirty AM because I watched "The Island" with Sarah. I really liked that movie because it was a science fiction action movie which what I wanted to watch. When I we watch movies together, it's usually some drama chick flick. It's alright; however, I do miss seeing action packed movies. "The Island" had a pretty good plot. It's about some a clone that starts questioning the utopia he's living in. So, he escapes it with his girl friend. A company was using the clones for people's insurance policy's like if they anything happened. The owner hired a hitman to kill the clones. However, he kills the exact copy of the clone instead. The girl friend gets captured on purpose.

The company killed all of the clones which were growing. They wanted to kill the rest of the clones because of they thought that curiosity was a bad trait. However, the main character and his girl friend killed the main guy and freed the clones with the help of the hitman. There wasn't enough dialogue which made me really care for the clones at the end of the movie. It was pretty funny watching the owner try to choke the main character. Lincoln ended reaching for something while being choked and then hit the owner. I thought that was pretty unrealistic. It didn't even look like a good choke either. It's pretty funny how one notices these things after being trained. In the movies and TV, people always die right after they pass out. Now I know that's not the case. It takes a little while for them to die. I don't know how long though. It probably depends on what type of choke one does too. I found a good review about the movie if you want to know more about it.